


i love you (ain’t that the worst thing you ever heard?)

by danceinmystorm



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: A roommates AU, Ben has commitment issues, But they can’t deny their attraction to each other, F/M, Rey commits to everything, Rey moves into Ben and Hux’s apartment, loosely based on new girl
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:01:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24380956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danceinmystorm/pseuds/danceinmystorm
Summary: When Poe decides to move in with his boyfriend Finn, he thinks it’s a great idea that Rey, his boyfriend’s sister who takes commitments very seriously, take over his old room in the apartment he shares with his friends.But when that apartment is also the home of non-committal Ben Solo, how can two distinct and combative personalities make it work?
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	i love you (ain’t that the worst thing you ever heard?)

It all began when his oldest friend Poe Dameron told him that he was thinking about moving in with his boyfriend of six months.

“I’m honestly surprised someone has put up with you for that long,” Ben Solo said absentmindedly as he did his morning workout on the floor of the apartment’s living room. 

“Dude, we’ve known each other since we were in kindergarten,” Poe reminded him.

“A friendship with you hasn’t been much of a choice when you Lived next door, ended up going to the same college I picked, a coast away from our parents, and I was forced to let you live off campus with me.”

“I paid my rent on time every month! And we’re getting off topic here anyways. Can you stop your ridiculous routine of 200 crunches and listen to me?”

“It’s only a hundred,” Ben muttered to himself as he got up to sit on the opposite couch. “So you’re moving in with Finn?”

“Yes,” Poe said dreamily, sighing as if he were in some Disney movie. “I think that it’s the natural progression of our relationship.”

“Well I’m happy for you,” Ben replied genuinely. “Maybe then I’ll stop hearing people having sex on the other side of my wall.”

Poe merely rolled his eyes. “That happened like, once.”

“Once that I actually confronted you guys about it. It kept happening that I had to get noise canceling headphones and move my bed inches away from the wall so I wouldn’t hear or feel anything.”

“Stop being dramatic. Anyways, since Finn and I are moving in together, that leaves Finn’s roommate Rey to find her own place.”

Ben grabbed his HydroFlask and took a drink. “You’re kicking his sister out? That’s cruel. Can’t you guys find your own apartment?”

“Well the apartment is close to Finn’s work and isn’t much further from my job that this place so we thought it would be stupid to give it up. Rey even said it was okay.”

“Because her brother wants to move in with his boyfriend. What do you expect her to do? Say no and throw a fit? Is that what the Brits do?”

“Okay, we’re seriously getting away from the point here. I didn’t only stop your ridiculous workout just because I wanted to tell you that Finn and I were moving in together. I was going to ask you if Rey could take over my room.”

Ben paused his hand holding his HydroFlask on its way to his mouth. “Uh...”

He recalled meeting Rey only once, months ago when Poe convinced Ben to go with him to a bar in order to meet his boyfriend. Ben wasn’t much of a social butterfly, never going out just to hang out with friends, only to go out and sit at the bar and wait for a pretty woman to take home for a one-night-stand when he felt like it, but Poe had never asked him to meet a significant other before. And wanting to meet someone who’d willingly be with Poe, _in a committed relationship no less_ , was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up.

When they got there, Ben saw that Poe’s boyfriend wasn’t alone. At the table sat what Ben thought was one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen - like a dream come to life, one conjured up in the dirtiest recesses of his brain. Slim but built, with chestnut hair barely grazing her freckles shoulders, juxtaposed against slightly tanned skin, the beauty’s head turned at the sound of Poe’s greeting and Ben almost tripped over his own two feet.

They _were_ rather large, but nevertheless.

Her green? Hazel? Honey? eyes met his and he almost pooled into a puddle into his large shoes. As if he wasn’t disarmed enough, she smiled at him with her white teeth and ruby lips, hand reaching out to meet his.

“Rey,” she had said, and it was the only sound he heard in the loud bar. “Lovely to meet you.”

“Ben,” he managed to reply without making a fool of himself. “Do you need another drink?”

“I’ll take another Yuengling,” she said, her smile never fading. Ben started to turn away in order to go fetch Rey another drink, and anything else she could ever want, when Poe gripped his arm.

“Woah there killer, I have someone else for you to meet,” Poe was laughing. “Ben, Finn. Finn, my oldest and truest friend, Ben Solo.”

The two men shook hands and regarded each other. In order to look as though he was actually here to meet and get to know Finn, and not his newfound goal to get to know Rey, he asked them for their drink orders. With one final brief smile to Rey, Ben made his way towards the busy bar and waited for the bartender to notice him.

Once he was noticed and told the man his group order, he felt a body sidle up beside his, an arm coming around his waist.

“Hey!”

Ben looked down to the girl who’d approached him. She looked familiar but he couldn’t quite remember her name. The only one in his brain at this point was Rey, Rey, Rey.

“Heeey,” Ben said with a chuckle. “Nice seeing you.”

“You never texted me,” this unnamed girl pouted, her bottom lip poking out. 

“Uh...” Ben had to think fast. He couldn’t even remember who this girl was, some recent hookup was his only hint, but he’d been stressed at work and needed to blow of some steam more than usual the past month so it really could’ve been anyone since Snoke promoted him. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” the girl seemed to recover quickly. “Wanna hang out tonight?”

The bartender, bless him, came back with Ben’s card and four drinks, giving him the perfect excuse to leave. “I can’t,” he said as he gathered the four bottles in his hands. “I’m here meeting people.”

“Super important, I’m sure,” she replied, patting him on the chest. “Give me a call, alright?”

Ben should’ve been ashamed of how easily he said sure, an obvious lie but said well enough to satiate the unnamed woman. He watched her leave, still wondering her name, and walked back to the table to see that there was one less person.

“Where‘s Rey?” he asked, his tone not hiding his disappointment as he whipped his head around to try to find her.

“She had to go,” Finn said cooly, grabbing his beer from the stack Ben brought back. “She...Uh...”

“Work thing,” Poe explained, rather abruptly. “Yeah. Work.”

Rey’s Yuengling was eventually drank by Poe.

Later that evening, when a slightly drunk Ben was helping a very drunk Poe into their apartment, Poe letslip out the real reason Rey had left.

“She’s a mechanic,” Poe said, slurring his words a bit as he leaned against Ben. “There was no work thing.”

“I figured,” Ben merely muttered as he brought Poe to Poe’s bedroom.

“She saw you,” Poe flopped onto the bed and curled into a fetal position, jacket and shoes and all. “With that girl. At the bar.”

Slightly Drunk Ben didn’t understand. “So?”

“She doesn’t like players,” Poe was hugging a pillow now, like a koala on a tree. “Someone that sleeps around.”

“How would she have known that? It was one girl.”

“She asked if it was your girlfriend. I told her you didn’t have girlfriends. Then she left.”

Ben smacked his own forehead with his hand. “Seriously, man?”

“Well, you don’t!” Poe said too loudly. “You bring women back here, bang them, and never see them again. You have commitment issues. I didn’t lie to her. I can’t lie to her. That’s Finn’s sister.”

“Finn’s sister?”

“Foster sister,” Poe clarified, still weirdly aware despite his drunken state. “Finn says she has some abandonment issues, takes relationships very seriously. Don’t fuck with her, dude. I mean it. Finn will choose Rey over anything in his life so if you fuck with her—“

“I won’t!” Ben exclaimed before crashing down on Poe’s floor.

Ben must’ve been quiet for way too long in his trance state because Poe started snapping in his face. “Earth to Ben. Wake up.”

Ben came out of the flashback, the terrible flashback, of when he’d first met Rey. “She wants to live here?”

“Well I don’t think she entirely wants to but she needs a place, the rent isn’t any different, and she works all the time anyways so it’d be like she’s never even here.”

Ben scoffs at the idea that he wouldn’t notice someone, _that someone being Rey_ , living and sleeping just a wall away from him.

“I talked to Hux about it already, he said as long as the rent is covered, he doesn’t care.”

Armitage Hux, their third roommate, was someone Ben met in college and now worked with. His room was the one on the opposite end of the apartment with the en-suite, after drawing the larger stick when they’d all picked this apartment. Of course he wouldn’t care, he’d never met the girl and hadn’t already made an ass of himself.

“Poe, I don’t know—“

“Look,” Poe said seriously. “I know her first impression of you wasn’t great. But this is just a place for her to live. You guys don’t have to be best friends. Just civil enough not to kill each other so rent and bills get paid every month. Like I said, she works a lot and she’s half-time at the university so she’s pretty busy. She’s also a neat freak. She has a damn cleaning schedule, so this place could benefit from that. What’s the worst that could happen?”

_I could make an even bigger ass of myself._

_I could make her feel uncomfortable just by my presence._

_I might end up falling in love with her when I’m incapable of falling in love with anyone and inevitably hurt her and Finn and you._

Poe’s pleading face made Ben groan in defeat. “Fine,” Ben relented. “What’s the worst the could happen?”


End file.
